Robust Oaxacan Music

On Tuesday we went to the city to greet a group that will be serving with Armonía for a month, and also to provide them with some orientation for their time here.

After doing that, we had the pleasure of attending a concert at UNAM (largest university in Mexico, and one of the largest in the world) which featured a philharmonic band of young people from Oaxaca, playing traditional Oaxacan music.  It was amAzing.  And even more so considering that most of the members of the band were under 18!  There was one boy that I think was no more than ten!  In the U.S. he would certainly be considered a child prodigy, but in many villages in Oaxaca it is very common for young children to be extremely proficient at brass instruments.  The music of Oaxaca is exciting, intricate, and very vigorous.  The rhythms are complicated and the melody lines very involved.  One neat thing about the concert is that some very famous solo musicians joined the band for certain featured numbers.  It was truly a fiesta oaxaqueña!

Armonía is obviously very involved in supporting the indigenous people of Oaxaca with their scholarship program.  It was neat for us to see, however, how much people appreciate and are beginning to truly lift up the culture and people of Oaxaca in a more secular and public platform.  The students in the band made introductions in their indigenous mother tongues, which was really neat!

Below is a clip of the last song they played.  You can see the crowd (made up of mostly Oaxacans) is really getting into it.